Do sports clubs do enough, or is it just me ?Over the years there have been numerous campaigns to encourage sport in society in the U.K., This girl canSport for allSky rideGoTri

To name but a few.All these campaigns, if you can call them that, encourage individuals to join a club. By joining a club you are told that you can get more out of the sport, the clubs are meant to encourage and be all inclusive, but are they really missing out on their target audience. By target audience I am suggesting that the individuals who most need the encouragement are the ones that are less likely to be ' socially inclusive '. The individuals who are most self conscious, the ones that are 'body aware', the ones that are most likely to feel embarrassed if they mess up, or feel stupid when the do something wrong, even when the ones around them don't mind. How many clubs actually check the members attendance to club activities, with paid up subscriptions ?Does the Welfare officer, or Secretary contact the individuals to enquire about them, and ask what they can do for them to get them active. Even pair them up with partners to train with, so that they can feel more involved, learn the sport without being made to feel that the spotlight is on them. Or are they just happy to take the subscriptions and not bother about the members unless they are their friends ?I just personally feel that in this day and age when you can't turn a page over in a paper without reading about Mental wellbeing that the club and societies that should be improving it, are not doing enough.Based on my own experiences, I have been a paid up member over the years of five tri clubs, and one athletic club. Discounting the BCTTT, as it is more akin to a social meeting than an all out sports club, not one has bothered to chase up my none appearance at club meetings, races, rides etc. If I have attended, the term, cliquey, would be an understatement, yes, I have tried to make an effort, marshalling at races, saying hi to other team members, even learning their names, but still end up feeling isolated.

Am I on my own in thinking this ?Or, do other clubs actively chase up their membership!

As much as any business. Except businesses have the glue of actually making money.... some people go to work for fun, but a lot go as often as they do because they get paid.

Clubs require a lot of individuals to devote a lot of time and effort. Older people tend to have this. Younger sports (e.g. triathlon) tend not to. Parents tend to put efforts in for their children, so kids sports do a bit better.

Triathlon has wider issues - it's a sport put on by private orgs, aimed at making money. Vast prices are only supportable by bucket list competitors - do one for a challenge, then walk away. There are never team prizes - e.g. total time of first three club members, etc. etc. So there is zero advantage of being in a club, when it comes to performance. There are no leagues.

The fundamental purpose of a club is obtaining discounts (e.g. BTF membership, shops), or for gaining access to scarce resource - open water swimming venues etc. etc. There's not really a tradition of putting on events, or a need to develop athletes (why bother, if there is no team competition).

Let's contrast with cycling time trials. It's very club/team focused. You can only enter if you are in a club/team. Events are only promoted by club/teams, so there's a realisation that you have to promote in order to have the events. There are team prizes. Although the new ranking system for this year doesn't seem to have a club dimension. However, it's not really a youth sport, so there isn't much focus on coaching etc. Although there is an increasing tendency for teams to coalesce around coaches. As TT is very niche, there's also an increasing tendency for teams - groups of individual who just want to do TTs to dominate, rather than traditional clubs (all aspects of cycling).

Looking at other sports, clubs tend to form around facilities - i.e. you need a club to maintain/gain access to a sports ground/pitch/pool etc. So your typical club tends to have a pitch, a club house, which can then sell beer etc. after the event. 50% of the events take place at that club, so it's frequently used. Everything else hangs off this central premise. Then the sport requires a team - especially for team games.

Anyway, clubs are hard to do. There needs to be an incentive in the way a sport is structured to help clubs. So clubs only exist where there is a primary need - i.e. you can't do it with out a club, this is either a shared resource, or needing to be in a club to enter.

Take British Cycling - once there was a need, and funding, to develop talent, they developed their own talent programmes - i.e. going to schools and spotting people with athletic potential, and definitely not using clubs as a feeder system.

The crisis in football seems to be wanting to do a similar thing - i.e. develop a parallel talent development system, independent of and not relying on clubs.

When I had the (mis)fortune to be plying my trade within the confines of a gymnasium, chasing people to join and part with their hard-earned monies was the primary goal of the 'Membership Team'. Not once do I remember any sort of activity which didn't involve getting people through the doors to sign up

Cliquey is one word which could be applied to the local Down South Velo ignorant twats, sorry, cycle club. I went out for a couple of rides with them a number of years ago, and aside from starting their rides at some socially unacceptable time of 0930, despite making the effort to converse it was very much a similar experience to Jon's with being ignored with no-one interested in making the new riders welcome. They're a bunch of ignorant twats anyway and every other cycle club (or non-SDV member) down here seem to dislike them whether it be for their ignorance towards other riders or drivers. Ignorant twats

Kevy427 wrote:When I had the (mis)fortune to be plying my trade within the confines of a gymnasium, chasing people to join and part with their hard-earned monies was the primary goal of the 'Membership Team'. Not once do I remember any sort of activity which didn't involve getting people through the doors to sign up

Cliquey is one word which could be applied to the local Down South Velo ignorant twats, sorry, cycle club. I went out for a couple of rides with them a number of years ago, and aside from starting their rides at some socially unacceptable time of 0930, despite making the effort to converse it was very much a similar experience to Jon's with being ignored with no-one interested in making the new riders welcome. They're a bunch of ignorant twats anyway and every other cycle club (or non-SDV member) down here seem to dislike them whether it be for their ignorance towards other riders or drivers. Ignorant twats

Eloquently put Kev

My local gym is much the same, use it for the facilities, not for the staff who spend their time with their 'personal clients' ( and friends ), not once in twenty years has a gym staff member asked ' what am I hoping to achieve ', 'or what my goals are', I am quite happy being Billy no mates, but, they just want the money. Even with a change of ownership four times, it hasn't changed.

Maybe you, Bopo, and Tritans could give those velo twats a lesson in etiquette and throw liquorice alsorts at them as you steam past.

jonathon.e wrote:My local gym is much the same, use it for the facilities, not for the staff who spend their time with their 'personal clients' ( and friends ), not once in twenty years has a gym staff member asked ' what am I hoping to achieve ', 'or what my goals are', I am quite happy being Billy no mates, but, they just want the money. Even with a change of ownership four times, it hasn't changed

It's also an environment which has quite a high staff churn so that doesn't help matters. Maybe they've seen the GJATC on the wireless with pictures and are respecting your privacy?

jonathon.e wrote:Maybe you, Bopo, and Tritans could give those velo twats a lesson in etiquette and throw liquorice alsorts at them as you steam past